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Slamd64 12.1 Released

Slamd64 12.1 is released, containing major new features such as GCC 4.2.3, SCIM, and greatly improved CJK support. Additionally, installation from FTP and HTTP sources is now supported.

This release is mostly an incremental improvement over 12.0, including:

Linux 2.6.24.5 (patched for CVE-2008-1375)

GCC 4.2.3

X11 7.3.0+

Glibc 2.7

Apache HTTPD 2.2.8, with SSL support and PHP 5.2.5

Updated development tools

KDE 3.5.9

XFCE 4.4.2

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.14

Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.14

Java (JRE and JDK) 6u6

Like previous releases of Slamd64, 12.1 provides seamless FHS-compliant 32-bit compatibility, via a multilib system (/lib for 32-bit libraries and /lib64 for 64-bit libraries). This provides easier and increased support for both existing 32-bit software (in most cases, you can just install a package designed for Slackware with no special work needed), and for 64-bit binaries too (which require /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 to be present) such as the NVidia drivers, without requiring compatibility symlinks which clutter the root directory and remove the separation of 32 and 64-bit binaries.

Additionally, nspluginwrapper is included in c/, allowing you to easily use 32-bit browser plugins (such as Adobe Flash) in the included 64-bit browsers, such as Firefox and Konqueror.

I’d like to thank the following people for their assistance, both for technical help, and motivation:

Carlos Corbacho – done a lot of my work for me, and drastically reduced the amount of time it takes me to keep Slamd64 up to date

Patrick Volkerding – Without Slackware, there wouldn’t be a Slamd64

Marc Carson, for the new logo

The various people thanked in the Slamd64 and Slackware changelogs, and THANKS.txt

Everyone who’s helped with bug reports or support on the forums/IRC

The residents of a variety of IRC channels (you know who you are)

Distributions I have taken compatability patches from; especially Cross-LFS, Gentoo, and OpenSUSE

The distributions that base their work upon Slamd64, especially those that give credit. This is a great compliment.

Additionally, I’d like to mention the following people who submitted logos that were shortlisted, although ultimately not picked:

Jeffrey Scherling

Samir Piccolotto

Geof Ritter

“VT”

Minor Slamd64 12.1 Change

Posted by Fred on 20080401 :: Edited by Fred on 20080403

Update: this was an April Fools’ Day joke.

I am happy to announce that thanks to superior hardware support, especially for modern Creative sound cards, Slamd64 Linux will become Slamd64 GNU/Hurd in 12.1.

Logo Competition

Posted by Fred on 20071130 :: Edited by Fred on 20071201

Hi; I’m looking for a new logo for Slamd64 – preferably more distinctive and original than the current one :p Here’s a few guidelines:

Not a banner image/forum signature image – a logo

Preferably SVG

Visually simple

Few colours – preferably downgrades nicely to black and white

Transparent background

Free for me, but not generally; by this I mean, I should be able to use it for any reason to promote Slamd64, so it’s an actually useful logo; however, I want it to be distinctive and unique – this means I need to be sure that it won’t be used by other projects. Talk to me if you have something good, but you’d like to talk about this more

Rules: All judging by me, and only me. The one prize is that the best entry may become the Slamd64 logo – I reserve the right not to change it if I believe that none of the entries are suitable. Please email me with any ideas, or questions.

Slamd64 12.0 Released!

Posted by Fred on 20071019

Slamd64 12.0 is released, the latest result of nearly two and a half years of development :). If you’re upgrading, please pay close attention to UPGRADE.TXT. Here’s a short list of highlights:

General:

Linux 2.6.22.8

GCC 4.1.2

Support for booting the installer by USB or PXE (netboot).

32-bit compatability:

FHS-compliant multilib system

Reworked 32-bit compatability libraries

Support for building 32-bit binaries (gcc -m32)

Seamless support for most 32-bit applications, including Cedega and OpenOffice.org

nspluginwrapper allows the usage of 32-bit browser plugins, including Flash Player

Desktop:

HAL automounting

KDE 3.5.7

XFCE 4.4.1

X11R7

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.6

Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.6

Mozilla Seamonkey 1.1.4

Pidgin 2.2.1

Server:

The Apache Project’s httpd, version 2.2.4

PHP 5.2.4

Perl 5.8.8

mysql 5.0.37

Slamd64 12 will be supported with security updates for at least the next two releases, and Slamd64 11 will be supported with security updates at least until the next release.

I’d like to take this opportunity to remind people of the support channels for Slamd64:

Bug reporting:

The bugzilla for most issues

Email me if it is a sensitive issue (eg security issues)

General support:

The forums

#slamd64 on irc.freenode.net

Contacting me (only if there’s a reason for not using the above)

I’ll also take this opportunity to shamelessly plug myself I am in my final year of a computer science undergraduate course at the University of Warwick, and I am looking for full time employment starting in July 2008. If you or your company has an interest, please look at my website, or email me.

Thanks to:

The Centre for Scientific Computing, University of Warwick, for the primary mirror, anorien.warwick.ac.uk

Carlos Corbacho

Eric Hameleers

Everyone else who’s posted a bug report on http://bugs.slamd64.com

he various distributions that have patches I’ve needed to use – in particular, Linux From Scratch.

The residents of #slamd64 on irc.freenode.net

The residents of ##slackware on irc.freenode.net

The residents of #slackware on irc.oftc.net

The residents of various other channels on irc.freenode.net (you know who you are

Michael Urban

Peter Christy

Steven Mitchell

Daniel Frank

Manufacturers of caffeinated drinks

If I’ve missed out anyone who feels they should be in the above list, please let me know :).

It’s uploaded to anorien, and should make it’s way to your favourite mirror shortly.

Slamd64 12.0 RC2 Released

Posted by Fred on 20071016 :: Edited by Fred on 20071016

Slamd64 12.0 RC2 has been uploaded, with ISOs, to anorien.warwick.ac.uk, and should be hitting your favourite mirror shortly.

Please make sure to read the release notes, UPGRADE.TXT, the changelog, and THANKS.TXT.

Have fun!

See! It’s not quite the same words as last time!

Slamd64 12.0 RC1

Posted by Fred on 20071008

Slamd64 12.0 RC1 has been uploaded, with ISOs, to anorien.warwick.ac.uk, and should be hitting your favourite mirror shortly.

Please make sure to read the release notes, UPGRADE.TXT, the changelog, and THANKS.TXT.

Have fun!

12.0 Progress

Posted by Fred on 20070817 :: Edited by Fred on 20070817

People keep on asking for information on progress of Slamd64 12.0; well, here’s the actual progress:

The installer works properly

USB and PXE installers are added

Slamd64-current is a very stable system

Slamd64-current is up to date with security updates

To do:

Rebuild all the packages that do not yet have _slamd64 in the architecture field; the reason for this is simple: Sflack and Slamd64 have agreed to do this to make it clear from the package name which of the several unofficial ports of Slackware a package come from; we think this is better for users, and makes it easier to support them. x86_64 in itself means ‘Slamd64′, ‘Sflack’, or possibly something else. The other port I contacted was unfortunately not interested in this change

Re-check all packages in Slackware that aren’t in Slamd64, and see if they can be added

I aim to have no known bugs in Slamd64 12.0 at the time of its release; this is excluding feature requests and other trivial issues

Now, why’s it taking so long? Firstly, I’m busy with other work, on KDE, for Google Summer of Code. Regardless of this, I don’t want to rush a release; Slamd64 12.0 has the potential to be the stablest release yet, and for me to be proud of it as the latest milestone after two and a half years of work since Slamd64 started in January 2005. I believe that producing a well-tested, stable release out is much more important than a ‘I got here first’ flag.

12.0 RC1 – When?

Posted by Fred on 20070615

12.0 RC1 will be out after the following (and more) have been done in -current:

Installer rebuilt

Added USB and PXE installers

Updated the maketag and tagfiles

No packages remaining that install to /usr/X11R6

No packages remaining without “_slamd64″ in the architecture part of the package name

I’m not going to give a time estimate, though I can give a hint to a lower bound: My exams finish on the 23rd; after this, I also have Summer of Code commitments. When I’m happy with my progress on Summer of Code after the exams, I’ll be able to put the additional time required to bring -current up to RC standard.

Re: Updates

Posted by Fred on 20070605

Updates for 11.0 and -current are up on anorien.warwick.ac.uk, and should be reaching the other mirrors shortly.

Updates

Posted by Fred on 20070601

Updates are ready for upload for 11.0 and -current. Unfortunately these have been delayed by server issues. These have been resolved for the most part, and only a minor permissions problem remains, which should hopefully be fixed shortly.

Summer

Posted by Fred on 20070412

Hi, during the summer, I will be working on a Google Summer of Code project for KDE; this should allow me enough time to contine to update Slamd64, though of course, the project may consume more of my time than I expect.

As I stated back in January, I will attempt to use the received donations proportionally throughout the remainder of the year. I am hugely grateful for your generosity, and will compile a list of the major donors and publish it shortly.

Fundraiser followup, and recent updates

Posted by Fred on 20070317

Hi, it’s looking highly improbably that the fundraiser is going to get enough money for me to work on Slamd64 full-time over the summer. I’m planning on doing a Google Summer of Code project, preferably for either the KDE project or the GNU project.

Slamd64 is still looking for a corporate sponsor; the benefits for your company as a slamd64 user are:

Your logo on this site, the forums, and the bug tracker

Permanent presence in the “THANKS” file

A brief (up to 5 lines) paragraph in the release notes for any releases during your period of sponsorship

A brief (1 line) message in all security announcements during the period of sponsorship

Faster security updates; with sponsorship, and Slamd64 as a reliable source of income, I’ll be able to make Slamd64 a higher priority for me. Of course, these updates will be still made available to everyone simultaneously.

A warm fuzzy feeling inside

I’m initially looking for a 3 month trial sponsorship, to be evaluated at the end, ideally renewed as a 12-month sponsorship. I’m willing to consider any reasonable offer; as a possible guideline, consider what it would cost to employ a linux administrator at your company for ~ 10h/week.

With regards to the lack of updates in the last 2 weeks, this is mainly due to coursework, however for the last few days it’s been due to the flu. I’ll hopefully get them up early next week.

Fundraiser

Posted by Fred on 20070119

As you may have noticed, the frequency and speed of Slamd64 updates changes throught the year. This is simply because my priorities have to be as follows:

University work

Paid work

Other urgent work

Slamd64

Anything else

This is because Slamd64 is a personal project which I do entirely in my spare time, and I am not paid to work on it.

Most notably, I am going to need to work during the summer. To guarantee to keep Slamd64 maintained during the summer while maintaining a slackware-style approach, I’m starting a fundraiser. If Slamd64 gets �00 (GBP) in donations by the 14th of April, I will treat working on Slamd64 as a full-time job for the duration of the University of Warwick’s summer holiday, excluding the first week when I will be on holiday with my family. Otherwise, I will have to get employment during the holidays, and I do not know how much time this would leave for Slamd64 work. If the target amount is not reached, I will try to treat it as part-time paid work proportionate to the amount received. If more than it is reached, I will put it towards working on Slamd64 either part-time during the term, or during the 2007 christmas break of the university.

I can accept donations via paypal (paypal link at top-right of page), or via bank transfer (email me for details). Large donations (� or above) will be thanked publicly.

I would also be interested in proposals for corporate sponsorship of the project; please email me with any proposals.

Yes, this is an almost-exact copy of my post last March

Server Move

Posted by Fred on 20061230 :: Edited by Fred on 20061231

Hi, the server hosting the forums, bug tracker, and the mailing lists was moved yesterday/today, and all official slamd64 sites except for the mailing lists should be alive again once the DNS changes have propogated. Thanks for your patience.

Update: There’s some problems with MySQL, so the forums and bug tracker aren’t up yet.

Update 2: The mailing lists are up again

Update 3: Finally looks like everything’s up at last

Server back

Posted by Fred on 20061022

Hi, the forums and bug tracker are back up, as is my prefered email address, mail@fredemmott.co.uk. We’re still trying to work out what the exact problem, and we’re very interested in offers of alternative places for hosting the server. This would either be a place where we (slackbook.org, slamd64.com, slackbuilds.org MX) could put a 1U server we already own, or a provided (unmanaged) dedicated server anyway. Thanks for your patience during the server problems.

Server problems

Posted by Fred on 20061016 :: Edited by Fred on 20061017

Hi; the main Slamd64 server, cardinal.lizella.net has been down for the last few days; this is due to an unknown issue at the datacentre. This is a new site, on a different server. Unfortunately, I don’t know how long until the bugtracker, forums, or mailing lists will be back up.

In other news, anorien.warwick.ac.uk is now the primary mirror for Slamd64; I’d like to thank the admins of the server, and the Centre for Scientific Computing at the University of Warwick for their generosity.

One last thing I’m useless at the visual aspect of web design; any suggestions for a better visual design of this site, please email me a link to a demo. It should be valid XHTML/CSS2, and usable in all major browsers (Lynx, Links, Konqueror, Mozilla-*, Opera, IE). There should be examples of layout for the news page (this page), and the “Get Slamd64″ page with the mirrors list. Thanks to anyone who helps with this

Slamd64 11.0 Released!

Posted by Fred on 20061003

Announcing Slamd64 Linux 11!

ISO images should be uploaded shortly.

More than 7 months after Slamd64 10.2b, Slamd64 has now reached a very mature and stable stage, and I’d like to thank a small number of the many people who have helped make this release what it is.

Firstly, I’d like to thank Carlos Corbacho for putting in a *huge* amount of work into finding and fixing bugs – A search of bugs.slamd64.com shows that he’s helped with more than 100 bugs since July. This really has been an incredible help.

Secondly, I’d like to thank everyone who helped with the Slamd64 fundraiser back in March/April, especially the following people who donated large amounts (if I’ve missed you off this list, please tell me and I’ll add you to it).

Peter Christy

Gebrs Duportail

Andrea Lee

Pieter Sartain

Jakob Viketof

Berend van Wachem

Damion Yates

Due to Slamd64’s increased maturity and stability, I will be producing security updates for Slamd64 11.0, even after -current is branched again; if you want notification of these, please sign up for the slamd64-security mailing list at http://lists.slamd64.com

Release highlights:

Updated to gcc 3.4.6, and now including gcj; unfortunately, including gcj has forced me to drop -m32 support, as this seems to be incompatabile with gcj. I’ll be looking for ways to work around this for the next release. In the meantime, I recommend using a Slackware chroot for compiling 32-bit binaries.

Added Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.7

Added Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5.0.7

Added Seamonkey 1.0.5

Updated to udev 097; If installed, udev now replaces hotplug, and is much faster.

Now only one kernel is needed – huge26.s, based on 2.6.16.29

Added pcmcicautils

Added amarok (KDE media player)

Added qca and qca-tls; this adds jabber support to kopete

Added git and mercurial (version control systems)

Added Ruby

The latest version of the popular K Desktop Environment, KDE 3.5.4

XFCE 4.2.3.2

Apache 1.3.37

mod_ssl 2.8.28

PHP 4.4.4 in slackware/n/, and PHP 5.1.6 in extra/

Lots of packages from Slackware that were missing in Slamd64 have been added; see ChangeLog.txt for a full list.

Upgrade notes (see CHANGES_AND_HINTS.TXT for more information):

alsa-drivers is now a separate package

Be sure to merge in the new configuration files in /etc/rc.d, otherwise things *WILL* break.

apr, apr-util, and mm have been split out from Apache; Apache, Subversion, and PHP will all depend on some of these.

Subversion now depends on slackware/l/neon

xfsprogs has been split into acl, attr, dmapi, xfsdump, xfsprogs

GTK+2 applications now depend on slackware/l/cairo

xvim has been replaced with vim-gvim, which depends on slackware/a/vim

The Mozilla suite has been replaced with Seamonkey

Have fun

Regards,

—
Fred Emmott
(http://www.slamd64.com)
(http://www.fredemmott.co.uk)

Holiday

Posted by Fred on 20060908

I’m going on holiday for slightly over a week from Sunday (2006-09-10), without a computer or an internet connection. This means that I won’t be responding to emails, providing updates, or releasing Slamd64 11 until I’m back (and then, only after Slackware 11.0 is released).

Slamd64 11.0 RC1

Posted by Fred on 20060815

Slamd64-current is now Slamd64 11.0 RC1. There have been many updates, see ChangeLog.txt for a full list, and the release announcement for highlights and release notes.

Fundraising News and -current Updates

Posted by Fred on 20060531

The fundraiser gained approximately �0, so I shall be attempting to find a part-time job over the summer. A list of large donators shall go up shortly when I have some more time. Updates to -current will be irregular for the next few weeks due to university exams.

Sorry for the delay and brevity of this post.

Fundraising and Updates

Posted by Fred on 20060324

As you may have noticed, the frequency and speed of Slamd64 updates changes throught the year. This is simply because my priorities have to be as follows:

University work

Paid work

Other urgent work

Slamd64

Anything else

This is because Slamd64 is a personal project which I do entirely in my spare time, and I am not paid to work on it.

Most notably, I am going to need to work during the summer. To guarantee to keep Slamd64 maintained during the summer while maintaining a slackware-style approach, I’m starting a fundraiser. If Slamd64 gets �00 (GBP) in donations by the 14th of April, I will treat working on Slamd64 as a full-time job for the duration of the University of Warwick’s summer holiday, excluding the first week when I will be on holiday with my family. Otherwise, I will have to get employment during the holidays, and I do not know how much time this would leave for Slamd64 work. If the target amount is not reached, I will try to treat it as part-time paid work proportionate to the amount received. If more than it is reached, I will put it towards working on Slamd64 either part-time during the term, or during the 2006 christmas break of the university.

I can accept donations via paypal (paypal link at top-right of page), or via bank transfer (email me for details). Large donations (� or above) will be thanked publicly.

I would also be interested in proposals for corporate sponsorship of the project; please email me with any proposals.

Slamd64 10.2b Released

Posted by Fred on 20060213

I’ve released slamd64 10.2b due to the installer issues with ext2 and ext3 in 10.2, and that there are no known problems that aren’t present in 10.2; the tree and isos should be making their way to your favourite mirror.

Updates and Donations

Posted by Fred on 20060113

Hi, there’s been several major updates in slamd64-current, and I would strongly recommend installing slamd64-current instead of 10.2, most importantly due to an error in the 10.2 installer which means that ext2 and ext3 partitions will not be formatted.

Secondly, you may have noticed there is now a PayPal donations button in the top-right corner. Donations are appreciated because they allow me to spend more time working on Slamd64 and studying for my degree, rather than having to earn money by other means, although I am always interested in work involving Slamd64. Obviously, Slamd64 will always continue to be free, but donations are greatly appreciated.

Slamd64 10.1 Released

Posted by Fred on 20050614

Slamd64 10.1 has been uploaded, and is starting to hit the mirrors. Mostly minor fixes, see the slamd64-announce mailing list posting for details.

Slamd64 is an unofficial port of Slackware Linux to the x86_64 architecture; despite the name containing AMD64, Slamd64 should work both on K8 (AMD64) and EM64T (some Intel) processors.

update v2: All the mirrors should be fine now, please see the Get Slamd64 page.

Slamd64 10.1 RC4 Released

Posted by Fred on 20050525

Slamd64 RC4 has been uploaded with the largest changes in quite a while:

Installation initrd now contains 64-bit executables – this should sort out issues with mkswap segfaults and modprobe

Upgraded the kernel to 2.6.11.10 to fix various security issues

Fixed the various sata kernels, addedadaptec.s and 3ware.s kernels

As well as the normal isos and tree, I’ve also uploaded .xdelta files; these are binary patches which can be applied to the RC3 isos to save bandwidth – seehttp://sf.net/projects/xdelta.

Slamd64 10.1 RC3 Uploaded, and GPG Key Change

Posted by Fred on 20050517

Slamd64 10.1 RC3 isos and tree have been uploading, and will be available for download as soon as your favourite mirror syncs. It’s identical to RC2 with the patches from a few days ago.

In other news, as my GPG key expires in a couple of months, I’ve created a new key, available from http://slamd64.com/GPG-KEY, but RC3 is still signed withthe old key.

Thanks for all your support.

Slamd64 10.1 RC2 Released

Posted by Fred on 20050425

Slamd64 10.1 RC2 should be hitting the mirrors shortly – thanks to Nick Sutcliffe for uploading it for me with my current bandwidth issues. Lots of bugs fixed, most xmms plugins are working, and GTK issues are fixed (although there may be an issue with IceWM and 32-bit GTK applications).

Test, tell me bugs, and send me bugfixes Might take me a while to fix things myself as I’m typing one-handed at the moment due to an unknown injury sorry for the delay. Hopefully this will become 10.1 Final.

Slamd64 10.1 RC1 Released

Posted by Fred on 20050306

I’ve released Slamd64 10.1 RC1 – it’s primarily a bugfix release. A few things to note:

KDE 3.4 will not be included in the final even if it’s released before I mark Slamd64 10.1 as final. Now I don’t want to change any packages any more than neccessary to give a good, stable system. Please don’t bug me about this. I will put up packages, but they will be unsupported.

Since I released it, I’ve became aware of a bug with GTK applications (specifically, a bug in the pango package). To solve: mv /usr/lib64/pkgconfig/* /usr/lib/pkgconfig, and recompile pango. Later today I’ll post a fixed pango pack, few days until RC2.

Please see the download page to get it.

Slamd64 Coaster17/Alpha 2 Released

Posted by Fred on 20050126

I’ve released Slamd64 Coaster17/Alpha2 – this is the latest prelease of this unofficial port of Slackware® Linux to the AMD64 platform. It is primarily a bugfix release – the only known remaining bugs are a few minor installer issues (tagfiles).

Please see the download page to get it.

Please don’t post bug reports or anything that requires an answer on my guestbook, as I only check it every few weeks. Instead, please see the contact page.

Slamd64 is ready for testing!

Posted by Fred on 20050119

Slamd64 is an entirely unofficial port of Slackware® linux to the amd64/x86-64. What this means is:

It runs nicer on an amd64

It is *not* called Slackware®, or any direct derivative

Do not bug Pat with bug reports. Slamd64 is not his responsibility

The alpha iso can be downloaded from Scarlet.be, I will be uploading the individual packages and source later today hopefully.

I’ve tried to stick to what Patrick Volkerding’s done/is doing with Slackware, with the following exceptions:

Entirely 64-bit userspace (unless you install c/)

Added c/ package set containing 32-bit compatabilitity libraries

No gnome/ – As it’s a real pain to package and build, and Pat’s planning on removing it anyway, it’s not here.

2.6 kernel and GCC 3.4 due to x86-64 compatability issues

KDE 3.3.2 with out-of-the-box PGP/MIME support

This alpha is built from slackware-current (a few weeks old), so is relatively up to date. However, I’m calling this an alpha because the only testing is the only testing it’s had is “WorksForMe(tm)”, with the exceptions listed in BUGS.TXT on the download site.

Big thanks to:

Patrick Volkerding for creating slackware in the first place

The guys in ##slackware on irc.freenode.net for general help and advice

The guys in #slackware on irc.oftc.net for installer and porting issues

Andreas for some installer issues, and general help

The Gentoo x86-64 and Debian Pure64 projects for GCC 3.4, Linux 2.6, and x86-64 compatability patches for various applications